Sixers 2010-11 PERformance to Date

Statman, this is Thad's agent, thank you; gotta go and call Rod!!! Are these the kind of numbers that allow our coach and g.m. to hold on to Thad and Lou and build a bench with role players around them? Has Lou improved defensively? D.Lynam mentioned it the other day but do these numbers varify it?

Re: Lou's defense, it hasn't struck me as better or worse than in the past, but I do know there are a lot of terrible backup point guards in the league (anyone playing Fantasy BKB who has tried to look for another PG would know this). Has his defense looked better to you? For me, his enduring legacy on defense will be getting torched by Dahntay Jones (probably the only time Dahntay has ever had the pleasure of "torching" anyone).

As you pointed out, 82games.com doesn't use PER, so I don't believe 15.0 is league average on that calculation. It seems that it's a point or two higher, although since they don't publish the calculation, it's impossible to know.

You're right, it's about a point or two higher and the difference varies from player to player. So the values themselves aren't as meaningful as the differentials and the relative comparisons to other players at the same position.

Of course, the "real" PER calculation is somewhat arbitrary, because the final step is to divide the raw PER by the "league average raw PER" and then multiply by 15. I was lucky that somebody actually calculated the league average raw PER and posted it on the web (it's 0.28), because otherwise it's impossible to calculate PER.

From what little I've seen of him this year, Gay has improved defensively, and he has credited his time with Iguodala on the World team as helping in that regard.

But there are always some puzzling defensive numbers on the 82games.com site. For example, so far this year the #1 point guard for opposing PER is Nash. I do wonder whether players like Nash (and, more obviously, LeBron, Wade, and Durant) have better opposing PERs because their opponents expend so much energy defending them and also get into foul trouble more often.

Thanks for posting this Statman. PER Dif is a nice quick and easy way to see if a player is winning his positional battle. Really surprised to see Thad and Lou NOT getting beat badly on defense. Really impressive Dif.

Iguodala has been one of the better PER DIf players over the past few years. But IRRC this is the first year that Lou and Thad are in such positive territory.

As for Jrue and Meeks I think its partly a reflection of Jrue drawing the tougher cover. But it also highlights how we judge Jrue on a curve, and he has a ways to go before he reaches his potential both as a defender and a creator.